I picked at my cuticles. “It won’t be forever.”
“I know it won’t,” he said. “I guess I thought once you graduated, I’d see you more. But maybe that was naïve.”
I held my hands open. I didn’t know what Manning wanted me to say. We’d been over this before. “Every time we have this argument—”
“This isn’t an argument, no matter how hard you try to make it one.”
I ignored him. “Every time, I remind you that you’ve always encouraged me to go to school for what I loved. To follow my dreams.”
“And I remind you that I’m not upset you have to work. What I hate is that I don’t get to see you as much.” He pulled at the collar of his flannel. “I want to have dinner with you every night. That was our plan. You promised me you’d never let me work past seven, but you haven’t held yourself to that same rule.”
I wanted to blame him for Blue’s pregnancy and for my missing dinner because he’d encouraged me to do something I loved, but that was my anger talking. It wasn’t his fault I’d been dealt a bad hand. I’d once believed there wasn’t anything that could keep Manning from me—not anymore. Because he’d let things get in our way before. And I’d fought tooth and nail to make Manning understand he did deserve a love story that painted the night sky, that he was enough for me, and that he’d be an amazing parent. Now that he not only believed it, but had let himself want it, I was going to take it away? What would that do to him? To me? To us? Did I owe him the opportunity to walk away, or did he have it in him to take on yet another battle?
“I’ve only worked through dinner a few times since I started there,” I said.
“Nine times in six months.”
“I’m still the new kid.” I sighed. “I promise it won’t become a habit, but I have to prove myself.”
“I get it, Lake—I do.”
Of course he understood. He had plenty right to be upset that I didn’t always come home for dinner when I’d made it clear to him years ago that I wouldn’t accept him working a minute after I’d called him to the table. I wanted to be pissed at the universe and at my body for its defects—and at Manning for continually reminding me everything would work out the way it was supposed to.
He was always so goddamn understanding.
At times, it made me angry that he wasn’t angry with me. I wasn’t understanding.
Blue got up on all fours. Manning also sat forward. “Is she okay?”
She paced around the small space, coming over to sniff me and then Manning. I wasn’t sure she registered us beyond the fact that we were sitting there. “Her water broke,” I said. “She’s getting ready to have the first puppy.”
Blue went to her dish, lapped up almost all her water, and returned to her nest—then changed course and lolled into the whelping bed Manning had made.
He blew out a long sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath. Silence stretched as we waited. Even though I’d been through this before, and there really wasn’t much either of us could do, my heart began to pound. My girl was having puppies. By tomorrow morning, our family would have grown.
“I think I see something,” Manning said after a while.
I straightened up, craning my neck for a better view. “You do?”
“Come here.” He opened knees and gestured for me. “Come watch with me.”
I crawled across the hay and sat with my back against his chest. He held me from behind, squeezing me as the puppy crowned.
“Oh my God,” I said.
He hugged me to him, probably hearing the emotion in my voice. “Don’t you do this for a living?” he teased.
“Yes,” I said, “but never with my own baby girl. Thank you for making the bed.”
He kissed the back of my head, and we watched, rapt, as Blue gave birth to her first puppy.
“I didn’t expect to be proud,” Manning said.
Leave it to Manning to feel pride over the birth of a puppy. How would he react to bringing our own child into this world? Could words even describe it?
“I hope you realize I’m going to be in the room when you give birth,” he said.
My heart dropped into my stomach. He still held no doubts that time would come. Now, not only was I defective, but I was a liar, too. As long as I didn’t tell Manning about my visit to the doctor, I was keeping something important from him.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” I said.
“I just want you to be prepared,” he said, laughing. “They’d have to arrest me to keep me away from the delivery room.”
The more he spoke, the sicker I felt. If there even was a delivery, it might be years and tens of thousands of dollars away. The next step for us, my gyno had said, was in vitro fertilization. The thought of everything coming our way because my body was failing to do its job made it hard to breathe. I shifted to duck out from under him, but he held me where I was. “Where are you going?” he asked.